


the mind knows what the mouth wants

by snowbrigade



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Injury Recovery, Introspection, Just slightly, Kinda?, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowbrigade/pseuds/snowbrigade
Summary: after ed reawakens, he is confused: confused to still be alive, confused why someone even wanted him alive, and confused how his slightest touch can feel like so much || post 4x22





	the mind knows what the mouth wants

**Author's Note:**

> i scarcely write fanfic, but i really needed to get this out of my system. i really like ed, and his dynamic with oswald, even if the writers dont... seem to know what to do with them... so heres my attempt at a remedy of sorts?

 

Gasping, he felt he’d taken a long fall and hit the surface of a body of water, a hard impact against every facet of him, breaking through to other side sputtering and trembling, his body an engine thrumming awake. Every stimulus was an assault, too sudden, too much. The faintest light seared his corneas. Cotton clothing scratched his skin, and an uncomfortable cot dug into his spine. Voices, though muffled and distant, clawed at his ears. His surroundings smelled of disinfectant, clinical, reminiscent of his time back in the forensics lab- an era that felt like both an eternity ago, and like yesterday.

Every nerve was set alight. His muscles ached, and a migraine split his skull, almost as if his body was screaming that this was _wrong, wrong, wrong_. His neurons shouldn’t send out electrical pulses to command his body to react. His heart shouldn’t pump blood through his veins, from the large arteries to the tiny capillaries, flushing his body with life. He drew a slow, ragged breath, filling lungs that shouldn’t have filled, and forced himself into a sitting position, legs swung over the side of the cot. His movements were heavy and clumsy; he didn’t quite feel like an inhabitant of this body.

This body, after all, had died. He’d known the wound was fatal, sunk in too deep, indiscriminately piercing any fat, muscle, vein, or organ in its way. With immediate medical care, it may have been treatable, but he’d known, amidst the chaos, that wouldn’t happen; as he slid into unconsciousness, death was at his heels.

He remembered each second in vivid detail. He’d been shocked, but not entirely, as the blade tore into him. And then- the satisfaction of reciprocating, warm blood washing over his hands as soft flesh yielded to metal. He’d brushed their lips together, wondering if there was anything left to feel--

All he felt was the burning of the knife buried inside.

He squinted against the light, finally attempting to take a good look at his surroundings. It wasn’t a hospital room, but it was fitted with assorted medical equipment like one. To call it ‘shady’ would have given it too much credit. He wore a modest hospital gown, and an IV dug into the crook of his arm. He pulled it out. Tentatively, curiously, he lifted the gown and peered down at his abdomen, peeling away bandage and gauze to reveal a stitched up wound. Inflammation had died down, but the tender flesh hadn’t quite knit together yet. He estimated about a week had passed. Initial relief- he hadn’t lost too much time, not like when he’d been on ice- drowned under rising shame.

How could he have been seized with such idiocy for so long? Disgusting, shameful, inexcusable. If the Riddler had met his end because of his own stupidity, maybe it was a deserved death.

Approaching footsteps cut his ruminations short. He tensed up instinctively as the door opened, revealing Hugo Strange- predictably, considering his name was synonymous with human reanimation- and an unknown, broad-shouldered man.

“Ah, Edward Nygma, you’ve finally rejoined us,” Strange said in a proud coo, his eyes gleaming in a way that made Ed’s skin crawl. “You are such the interesting specimen. I really wanted to cut open your cranium and dissect that brain of yours, but, unfortunately, your rescuer paid a lot to ensure you were returned unaltered.”

“Rescuer?” he echoed, voice hoarse. He couldn’t think of anyone who would care if he was resurrected, let alone resurrected without any of Strange’s experimental modifications. He began to wonder if this was the beginning of a mind game. Strange _had_ expressed interest in his brain, which he took as a form of flattery.

The doctor continued on as if he hadn’t heard. “Fortunately, you and Miss Thompkins were brought in _fresh_. It was simple enough to bring you back practically good as new. Miss Thompkins awoke a few days before you and has already gone on her way.”

Lee was alive too. The wound in his abdomen pulsed. His chest felt hollowed out.

“Anyway, this gentleman is here to take you.” He paced forward and placed his hand on the side of Ed’s head, blunt nails brushing against his scalp, causing his subject to flinch away. Strange chuckled softly, quietly musing, “Maybe another time, if you’re not careful,” before leaving him alone with the stranger.

“Clothes for you. Get dressed so we can leave,” the man said, all harsh angles and no-nonsense as he dropped a pile of clothes on the cot.

“To where?” Each syllable burned his dry mouth and throat, and his tongue felt thick and ineffective behind his teeth. He finally retrieved his folded glasses from a nearby table, pushing them up his nose, and blinking several times behind the lenses as the world sharpened.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re not in a position to ask questions, anyway.”

Ed had to disagree. Glancing around, there were at least seven items he could use as an improvised weapon, and the man seemed easily outwitted. Sure, he might have been dead until shortly ago, and pain radiated from his torso, and his head spun as he processed his continued existence, and everything felt several degrees malaligned, but he told himself he was doing the man a kindness by playing along.

He hastily dressed his wound in fresh bandages before turning to the clothes he’d been gifted: a crisp white button-up, grey silk vest, ironed slacks, shined oxfords, and clean socks and underwear. His “rescuer” was evidently someone who placed value in fashion- if they wanted to send him clothes, why not pack up any pair of dirty jeans and a t-shirt and call it an outfit? Another puzzle piece fell into place once he was fully dressed, but it wasn’t one he’d expected.

The clothes fit him perfectly, not an inch too loose or too tight. There was the chance someone had gotten lucky estimating his sizes, or his “rescuer” was someone who knew. Ed could think of a person who fit all this criteria, except that person had no reason to want him alive.  

His eyes darted over the man. A riddle fell from his chapped lips like a nervous tic. “I change with the seasons, but I’m not a part of nature. I’m used to conceal, but you can see me at a glance. What am I?”

The man groaned. “You’re as annoying as they said.”

“C’mon, it’s not even a difficult one. Clothing. The answer is _clothing_ ,” Ed snapped, gesturing at his ensemble with both hands.

He only received a grunt in response, and a wave of a hand to follow. He felt if he lingered for too much longer, Strange would seize the chance for a lobotomy and descend upon him with needles and scalpels. Ed thought it could be a welcoming relief, considering the omnipresent aching, until an image from a textbook crossed his mind. Long thin surgical picks from the 40’s slipping beneath eyelids and inserted through eye sockets, driven through bone and into soft white matter. He scrambled after the man.

The car outside was black and discreet, with a clean leather interior. He slid into the back as the man commanded the driver’s seat, door slamming loudly. The locks clicked, and Ed wondered if he had accepted a ride right into the belly of the beast. Perhaps it was foolish to assume it was anything else, but foolishness wasn’t as much of a rarity for him as he would like.

No, instead it was commonplace. Always had been, and always would be, just as his father said. The older man’s voice rang out in his head, sending a wave of pain with each curse and insult, as he clenched his jaw tight. Shaking fingers buckled the seatbelt. Safety first.

Ed slumped to the side as the vehicle shambled forward, forehead pressed to the window, thankful for the cool, smooth surface even when the uneven streets of Gotham caused his head to bounce against it. He let out a long breath, still marveling at how he was capable of it; the spread of fog against the window, fanned outward from his mouth, gleamed as testament to his life.

“Who sent you?” he asked in a drawn out, lazy sort of way, with his head lolled to the side and eyes unfocused. The man let out another noncommittal grunt. Ed scoffed. That was fine. He thought he’d already figured it out, and didn’t need answers from expendable henchmen anyway.

Even as he let his vision soften around the edges, he could tell the Gotham outside the window, cast in hazy twilight, was more broken and chaotic than before. Distant gunshots punctuated the air, although in this city, they were no more obtrusive than birds’ cries.

Speaking of birds….

The car came to a stop in front of an elegant building, its design sensibilities befitting the aesthetic inclination of a certain bird. The pieces were coming together to form a complete picture, but it was one he had trouble understanding, the way a Lovecraft protagonist couldn’t comprehend cosmic horror. Face drawn together in concentration, Ed didn’t notice the driver had left his seat until his door opened and an arm yanked him out. “Come on.” He stumbled out, pulled forward by a rough hand.

“I can walk myself, thanks,” he spat, pulling out of the man’s grasp, although his uneven, clumsy stride betrayed his words. He felt like a dead man walking- literally, a dead man walking. While he stumbled ahead, he could feel the man’s eyes burning into his back, making sure he made no move to escape. That was an amusing notion. Where did he have to go? The Narrows? He held no loyalty to there. For the moment, he would see what the little bird wanted.

The interior was a work in progress, but he could already see the expected touches for a base of operations. It was functional, but didn’t spare artistry. One of the henchmen milling about raised a gun to Ed’s head when he walked in, but lowered it once his escort appeared behind him and asked for the boss.

It was always a marvel, Ed thought, how someone of small stature could command such presence, someone that had come from nothing but preened like a king. Before him stood an embodiment of the ouroboros, cycling through rises of power and treacherous downfalls over and over again, but continued to sustain as he ate his own tail. The cut of his suit jacket pronounced his shoulders and accentuated a slim waist; most fabric was dark, but the pattern on his vest and tie brought contrast to his outfit. While he dressed immaculately, his face bore unwell pallor, and purplish shadows curved beneath his eyes.

His limp was different. Ed thought only he could ascertain the small adjustment in his movement and posture, a way he held himself when his leg particularly bothered him and he wanted to belie the pain. It was easily missed, if you lacked a sharp eye, and familiarity. He must have been straining himself recently.

“I get it. You brought me here because you missed your favorite piece of decor, right?” Ed spoke before Oswald could, an easy calmness on his face to mask his confusion.

This drew a small laugh from him. “Well, you do have a statuesque figure, but no. For now, come back into my office.”  

The office wasn’t much, yet, but maybe it would be one day. Oswald sat behind the desk, while Ed pulled a chair up close on the opposite side, leaning over and settling his arms onto the wood like he belonged. Oswald quirked an eyebrow at how comfortable the other was making himself, when he had no reason to feel comfort, but silently offered a water bottle. Greedy hands snatched it up, and a dry mouth affixed to the opening to swallow the room temperature water down without hesitation. Oswald idly watched his Adam’s apple bob.  

Ed exhaled loudly as he placed the empty bottle down, running the back of his hand across his lips. As if to test his newly hydrated throat, he spoke, “I am a house, and though I am occupied by people every day, no one lives in me. Even on my lowest floor, you are close to a high place. What am I?”

“...Are you serious? You were just brought back from the dead, and now- you think now is a time for a riddle?”

“ _What am I?_ ” he repeated, brown eyes boring into paler ones.

Oswald sighed dramatically and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, but his squeezed shut eyes and wrinkled brow told Ed that he was thinking on it. He mumbled an incoherent string of words under his breath, until opening his eyes and giving a terse answer. “A church.”

A smile of delicious satisfaction spread across the Ed’s face, as he placed his elbows on the table, and settled his chin on folded hands to keep his head propped up. “I was never very religious. Science couldn’t explain a higher power in a way that satisfied me, but… more times than I could count, I was dressed in my Sunday best and sat quietly in a pew while listening to a sermon. My father,” the word was bitter on his tongue, “made me go, saying it would be good for me, that I’d learn how I should properly act. Clearly, it didn’t work, but I digress….”

Oswald’s expression was perplexed, but, if he hadn’t shushed him yet, interested enough to see the destination of this conversation. “The point is,” he continued, “I didn’t believe in an afterlife. When we die, we rot in the ground, nothing more and nothing less. However,” he raised a calculated finger, “I seem to have been proven wrong. Right now, I’m in Hell, personally crafted by Satan to include your likeness to torture me for all of, well, eternity, as my most fitting punishment.”

Oswald wheezed out laughter. “You know, I payed Strange good money to not mess with your brain. Am I going to have to ask for a refund?” Ed faltered slightly as Oswald leaned forward, closer. “You so badly think I want you dead, that it’s less crazy to believe you’re in Hell right now?”

He swallowed hard. “It’s not so much that I think you want me _dead_ ,” Oswald already had that chance several times and never gone through with it, “but, say that I died through failings of my own, I don’t see why a reason why you’d prefer I was _alive_ instead.”

“Why wouldn’t I want you alive?”

Ed’s throat felt drier than before. He should have rationed the water bottle. “I think we both know the answer to that,” he responded, drawing his lips together tightly.

Oswald’s half-lidded eyes shone with intensity as he moved an iota closer across his desk. “Yes, but I want to hear what you’re thinking.”

“I betrayed you… for someone who was using me, that you’d warned was using me. Someone whom I guess I, I loved an idealized version of,” he breathed out quietly. His jaw was taut, head throbbing. Admitting mistakes brought shame more than catharsis. “After you’d given me your trust. After you forfeited your revenge just to save me.”

“Yes, for all of her treachery, Sofia’s blood should have been mine,” he said in a low voice, his features darkening at her mention, hands tightening into fists.

“So, understandably, I didn’t think you were on the list of people who cared if I lived or died.” He was holding his head in his hands now. “Actually, I don’t think there’s a list at all,” he added ruefully.

Silence descended, until broken by a faint string of gunfire (a rapid barrage from an automatic rifle, followed by a sprinkling of pistol shots), and then Oswald’s voice, softer, yet as potent as any bullet. “You don’t think I care.” Ed had a hard time telling if it was a statement or a question. Either way, he shrugged.

“I don’t expect you to,” he admitted, looking over the top of his glasses which had slipped partway down his nose.

When Oswald extended an arm, Ed braced for a blow to confirm his theory, but a thin finger contacted with his glasses and nudged them back into place. It sometimes surprised him how delicate the kingpin’s touch could be when those hands mercilessly ripped lives away, a wonder how they remained pale through all the blood they’d spilt. It surprised him more how he cherished the touch, the faint brush of Oswald’s fingertip against his cheek as he withdrew his arm, hardly perceptible, yet leaving blossom of warmth; he chalked it up to sensitive nerves after his new role of Lazarus of Bethany.

“So, what’s your plan?” he asked suddenly, as if to distract himself from the buzzing sensation on his skin. “Maybe I’m not in Hell, but you still could have had Strange resurrect me for the sake of torture and revenge.”

Oswald’s eyes sparkled with amusement. Ed tensed. He’d thought it was a distinct possibility, but had still been holding out hope for the contrary.

“Funny you mention that, actually,” he said in the exact way to make Ed’s empty stomach twist into knots. “This was before you’d been found dead. I’d already gotten ahold of Strange, and had him cure Butch of his affliction. I let him share a touching moment with Tabitha, before I shot and killed him. I did feel bad for Butch, but it was worth it for her expression.” His mouth curled into a cruel smile. “It’s something I shall never forget. And _she_ will never forget the moment someone she loved died right before her eyes, while she stood helpless.”

“Butch could have been a useful ally,” Ed countered.

“I did think of him as a friend, but Tabitha killed my dear, sweet mother, and she needed to suffer accordingly. Finding Butch created the perfect opportunity.” His eyes were narrow like his smile, his edges sharp and dangerous.

“Oh,” he said, breathlessly, admiringly. Oswald’s calculating mind was beautiful. His deviousness came wrapped in a deceptive shell: a man five and a half foot at best, an unassuming figure under his layered clothes, an injured leg that caused an nonthreatening limp, a proclivity for emotional outbursts, and a nickname which was a flightless bird considered adorable by the general population. In a city crawling with mobsters, with villains that used dangerous toxins or advanced cryotechnology, or could raise the dead and create abominations, Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, who’d started as nothing more than an umbrella boy, rose with cunning as his greatest weapon. A criminal who still won the public heart and became mayor. A survivor who cheated death and used skin thickened with scars as armor.        

“Who stabbed who first?” Oswald asked suddenly, nonchalantly, as stabbings in Gotham were as casual as the weather.

Ed wasn’t keen to relive the fresh memories, but under the intent stare of the man opposite him, he relented. “She did,” he said, and hastily added in an attempt to lessen how pathetic he sounded (although that damage had already been done), “But, I mean, I’d intended to. Stab her. I had my knife ready behind my back. She just, did it first.” He raised a fist, pantomiming the action of thrusting a knife, before his arm listlessly dropped back down.

“Wow.” Oswald raised his eyebrows, voice flatter than off-brand soda left out for a week. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, shut up.” His words were nowhere as sharp as he would like. As if to deflect from his inability to defend his actions, he asked, “Why did you have Lee brought back too?”

“I might not be her biggest fan, but she seemed more useful alive than dead,” he answered simply, shrugging.

“Where is she now?” Ed’s tongue spilled the words before his mind fully processed the question they formed.

“The Narrows. Why?” Oswald tilted his head to the side, lips curled into a sneer. “Were you planning to crawl back to her like a lovesick puppy-dog with his tail between his legs?”

“And what if I was?” Ed snapped, less a question and more a dare for Oswald to retaliate.

Oswald smiled, calm, steepling his fingers as he met Ed with a steady gaze. “You do know what they say insanity is, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Though, as I recall, you got the certification from Arkham declaring you sane.”

Releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Ed visibly deflated. “I wasn’t planning on going back to her.” Wincing, a hand went over the wound as it began throbbing anew.

“You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?” Despite curling it into a question at the end, he stated it like a confident fact. “Gotham’s dangerous out there.” Knowing that wasn’t saying much about the city, he tacked on, “More than usual.”

“Actually, about that, could you, uh, fill me in on what’s happened?”

He was embarrassed at his lack of knowledge on the situation, and knew the fault lay in his earlier preoccupation with Lee; fortunately, Oswald spared him condescension as he went over the events leading to this point and the current lay of the land. Ed wished the pain in his head would lessen so he could better analyze it all. He placed an elbow on the table and leaned his face into his hand, eyes fluttering shut against the pain while he focused on listening.

“Ed?”

He forced his eyes back open. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not feeling my best. Just dead, and all,” he said, brushing it off with a wave of his hand.

“Look,” Oswald sighed, making eye contact, and Ed couldn’t look away. “we’ve been through a lot together, and I don’t intend to abandon you now, when the city’s in chaos. You have a place in my home, if you wish. Free to leave anytime.”

Ed stared into his face, trying to decipher his intentions, before smiling wryly. “Well, seeing as I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Oswald clapped his hands together. “It’s settled then.” He stood and walked around the desk, lightly placing a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “You should get some rest.” The twinge of concern in his voice caused an ache in Ed’s body down to his bone marrow. “I’ll have one of my men drive you.”

And then, too soon, the hand was gone, and Ed was walking out of the office, and out of the building, where the Gotham air was cold and unforgiving. He realized, in their dance between subjects, he didn’t get clear answers out of Oswald- why he’d saved him, or what he was planning next. He was okay with that, for now, because it was just a puzzle for him to solve. The lingering warmth on his shoulder reminded him how Oswald always had been one of his his favorite puzzles.

**Author's Note:**

> originally this was supposed to be a one-shot but as i was writing i realized i wanted to explore this more, so we'll see how far this muse takes me. thanks for reading! c:
> 
> fic title is taken a lyric taken from The Most Important Part of Your Body by The Paper Chase; chapter title is a lyric taken from Karma Police by Radiohead


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